Kamala Harris To Tour California Immigration Detention Center

The California senator is expected to visit the Otay Mesa Immigration and Detention Facility in San Diego on Friday.

Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) is expected to visit the Otay Mesa Immigration and Detention Facility in San Diego on Friday, according to a press release from her office.

Harris will tour the facility and meet with mothers who have been separated from their children. The senator has been a vocal advocate of comprehensive immigration reform that protects the rights of women and children.

She recently called for the resignation of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen due to the divisive policy of dividing migrant children from their families.

I’m calling on Kirstjen Nielsen to resign as Secretary of Homeland Security. Under her watch, our government has committed human rights abuses by breaking up families along the southern border. And she has ​failed to be accountable to and transparent with the American people.

“The government should be in the business of keeping families together, not tearing them apart,” Harris said in a statement. “And the government should have a commitment to transparency and accountability. Under Secretary Nielsen’s tenure, the Department of Homeland Security has a track record of neither. As a result, she must resign.”

The news comes as the Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday to halt the heartbreaking policy as migrants cross the southern border.

Harris, who was elected to office in 2016, serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

The practice caused a political hotbed for the Trump administration, who since April has enforced a zero tolerance policy on migrants who cross the U.S.-Mexico border.

To date, an estimated 2,342 immigrant children have been separated from their families at the border between May 5 and June 9, according to numbers from the Department of Homeland Security.

Harris’ colleague, fellow California Senator Diane Feinstein, has introduced the Keep Families Together Act, a bill which would formally halt the practice.